


this could get gruesome

by thisishardcore



Category: Columbine - Fandom, True Crime - Fandom
Genre: Blood Brothers, Bombs, Columbine, Drinking, First Kiss, Gen, Guns, High School, Homicidal Thoughts, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, Violent Thoughts, duh - Freeform, i mention nbk like a million fucking times, planning nbk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26804359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisishardcore/pseuds/thisishardcore
Summary: Eric looks out his window, takes a long dramatic drag, lets the smoke fall out of his mouth in slow waves. "We don't have to go in. My parents are out."If it sounds like a proposition, Dylan ignores it. "Nah, I heard they have good shit in there. Rich kids and all.""Bunch of fucking preps," he flicks his cigarette out the window, onto the sidewalk below.
Relationships: Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris/Dylan Klebold
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	this could get gruesome

**Author's Note:**

> im gonna have to start editing these if they start getting longer and longer but uh. this one isn't rigorously revised or anything, and i wrote half of it while drinking.
> 
> also i'm like.. super flexible with actual events and timelines and stuff. i didn't really fact check anything, so if something's off, don't tell me

It's hard to pin down the first time Dylan thinks about it. It's so passive, so easy to miss-- the image of a maggot worming through his eye socket, the image of skin bloated and purple, or soaked in blood, a mess of meat and gore. It's the first hint of a thought, the first suggestion of homicidality. 

He doesn't picture Eric next to him-- This isn't the kinda thing you talk about to anyone-- Maybe a therapist if you're forced to. But Dylan's got a pretty good act already in place, doesn't have to reveal anything he doesn't want to. 

It comes out almost reflexively. His voice is small, blurred by vodka and cheap beer. Whatever he and Eric could get their hands on. His lungs sit heavy in his chest, and he can blame the cigarettes.

"You ever thought about offing yourself?"

"Like killing myself?" He asks, his voice its typical calm tone, hardly affected by the night's score. Eric runs his tongue over his bottom lip, Dylan can see it in the flashing light of the basement television. He nods, rolling onto his back, stretched out on the floor beside the couch Dylan's currently laying across. "Guess so. Never-- Never serious or anything, I don't think. Just--" He cracks a smile, "Don't think I'm meant for all this-- People and whatever."

Dylan gets it. They're different than the rest of the crowd in their school. Everyone thinks they're different, but it was true of them. Their tastes are different, their worldviews, their vocabulary. They're actually trying to think for themselves, not just going along with whatever they're parents were saying, whatever got them into the popular groups. They paid the price for it plenty, but that only assured Dylan about their position above the rest of everyone. 

It wasn't arrogance-- Dylan didn't think he was like, the pinnacle of all creation or anything, but sure, he thought he was better, in some sense. Advanced somehow. He had a certain power at his fingertips, a certain amount of potential. 

He can blame that self-awareness for his suicidality. He often did, when it got bad enough. Tried to justify it to himself, rationalize it. Nice to know that Eric did something just like that, though a bit crueler, with a bit more precision. 

"I'd take as many fuckers down with me as I could, though." The sentence hit Dylan, nearly knocked him stone-cold sober. That hadn't occurred to him-- Not in that way, not with _him_ how he was. Maybe through the lens of some action-star, maybe through a game or a dream. Eric clearly thought of himself doing the killing, in his own world, to people he knew. Dylan wanted to ask about a dozen questions at once. 

Eric catches his eye. It nearly blinds him. "Go full NBK." He grins. Wide, sharp.  


* * *

The fireworks were easy enough. They're both teenage boys, both fit to busting with an inexplicable type of rage, sparked by normal shit, fueled by each other. Eric gets this cold tone, sadistic, as he describes the kinda legacy he wants to leave behind. Dylan can tell he's stopped planning for the Marines like his dad wants, never really thought about college seriously. All that's left is Dylan. He knows that. He kinda likes it. 

They go up to the mountain, talk openly about blowing shit up, about taking shit apart and making them more dangerous, probably illegal. Every boy laughs along, every girl-- the few of them-- make faces, but laugh well enough. 

The pipe bombs (Eric's idea) are a little harder to justify. And Eric, gaudy and actually fucking arrogant, believing he could do nothing wrong, practically waves them the fuck around everywhere he can. It's not a fucking shock when his dad finds one. 

Dylan thought that would be it. All of their forming ideas, all their plans and ambitions, all of it was down the fucking drain, and they'd have to go to fucking juvie, be separated for the next fucking year. And it wouldn't fucking matter how much they planned since then. In that panic, Dylan has the fuzziest of thoughts. He would never do this alone. Eric was the only person who gave him the guts to go NBK. (Which, well, he didn't want to think about too hard. Eric would have to be the demon in that metaphor. Dylan would have to be-- Well.)

But it was fine in the end, panicked for nothing. If anything, Eric's dad definitely doesn't see him as a demon. Which means Dylan can calm the fuck down about the whole metaphor.

* * *

It's dark and warm out, one of the last warm nights of the year (one of their last warm nights ever, if everything went according to plan). Eric was driving, blasting his loud fucking music, windows rolled down, arm out the window. The streetlamps cut across his features, spill onto his skin in flashing rows, one after another. NBK's the only thing they talk about lately, and for good reason. Only six or seven months left. Eric had this way of soothing whatever lingering worries Dylan had left, and so NBK doesn't even seem like a scary thing anymore. Everything would go right if he just listened to Eric. And he would, of course. No one else offered him a way out. 

But tonight, one of the last warm nights of the year, they're heading to a party-- Something they weren't quite invited to, but heard about, and decided to go to anyway. And if they got called names and kicked out, they might at least be able to catch a buzz first. 

Eric taps out a cigarette after he parks against the curb, offers one to Dylan right after. It's a small, solid gesture. He lights his own end, then leans in close to the tip of Dylan's, filter firmly between his lips. Fraternal, Dylan thinks, and that's it. Some tender show of friendship, rare but not out of character. They both appreciated a story of brothers. 

Eric looks out his window, takes a long dramatic drag, lets the smoke fall out of his mouth in slow waves. "We don't have to go in. My parents are out."  
If it sounds like a proposition, Dylan ignores it. "Nah, I heard they have good shit in there. Rich kids and all."  
"Bunch of fucking preps," he flicks his cigarette out the window, onto the sidewalk below. 

He's not wrong. These parties tend to cater to a specific kind of Columbine student. Especially the ones on this side of town. "Let's go back to mine. It's not worth it."

Dylan shrugs, a shock of something ineffable shooting up his back. This feels different. Dylan can't pin down why. 

* * *

It's so passive, Dylan can't categorize how much he was doing and how much was happening to him. He can feel the buzz on the edges of his thoughts, in all his limbs, and it almost felt like a dream, almost felt unreal-- But the weight of Eric, heat and light, breath and bone, it's completely present. Dylan can feel nothing else.

Eric was muttering something, but Dylan might as well be underwater. Eric's lips meet his, and the feeling rips through him. It's suddenly all horrible, every sensation a new puncture in his lungs. Dylan, quick as lightning, shoves Eric off him, off the couch, onto the floor. Eric almost yells, almost cusses him out but-- He must catch the look in Dylan's eye, a terrified sort of tension building behind them. 

If there's one truth in their school, in their world, it's that being gay is the worst thing to be. Automatically the bottom of the totem pole, and it wasn't like they had a far way to fall anyway. They'd been called homos and queers enough, had been teased about how close they always were. Columbine would fall into a riot if they showed any inkling of that being true. 

Eric doesn't say a word, and now that the moment's broken, all he seems to be able to do is breathe and look at Dylan. They both know what something like this means, and now they can't pass out and pretend it didn't happen. Now they have to stare it, hold it between themselves. 

"Look--"

"Don't say a fucking word, alright? Don't."

Dylan's forgotten how sensitive he how, how reflexively he hides his emotions behind a sharp tongue and a shining arrogance. Dylan bites his lip. He doesn't say a word. 

* * *

The past few days have been quiet. Externally, Eric shows almost no emotion around Dylan. He's normal in class, around Nate and the rest of them. He works as efficiently as ever. But when it's just the two of them, Eric completely shuts down. 

Which would be _fine_. He doesn't have to be how he is with everyone else around Dylan, of course he doesn't, but he gives _nothing_. Dylan's not even sure if he wants to do NBK anymore. Everything seems to be called off. He drives to school on his own, stops asking if Dylan wants to come over for Doom or the millionth _Event Horizon_ rewatch-- Dylan's completely abandoned. 

Even Brooks started asking about it. "Not with Eric today?" he laughed, hunched over the lunch table, fucking with his watch, "Really surprised you can go ten minutes without breathing the same air as him. A medical miracle."

Dylan rolls his eyes, but his guts turn over, his lungs fill and deflate so pathetically, Dylan could shoot himself on the spot. It's such a stupid fucking situation. Eric was the one to do something in the first place, and he was probably more sober-- and they were supposed to be blood brothers, cut their hands in middle school and everything. There was some part of Dylan in Eric's fucking bone marrow, but god forbid they do anything together. 

_Natural selection_ he can hear Eric say in the back of his head. 

Dylan grunts, shoots up from the table, stomps across the commons. He hears someone call him a spaz, someone else a freak. Hears snickers and other, quiet insults. Doesn't fucking matter, any of it. 

Eric goes to the Computer Science room when he has nowhere else to go. He's fucked around with small programs, made stupid games he spends hours perfecting, just to be absorbed in something, just to not have to think of anything else. Dylan's outside the door before he can think twice about opening it.   
Sure enough, Eric sitting in front of a screen. Dylan realizes it's the first time he's seen him that day. Everything he wants to say bubbles in his throat, but before any of it comes out, Eric starts talking, cool and collected. 

"Y'know something? It's real easy to lie to everyone else. Figure out what they wanna hear, make 'em think whatever you're doing was their idea in the fucking first place, whatever. There's millions of ways. But you're not--" His words catch in the air. He starts over. "Blood brothers, Dylan.

And he gets it. That's all that needs to be said. Dylan nods, standing in the doorway, fists clenching and clenching. Eric doesn't look at him, but it doesn't feel like a rejection. His brow is furrowed, and Dylan thinks it's maybe the only expression he's seen of Eric's that wasn't performative or exaggerated. 

Eric gets up from his plastic chair, faces Dylan. He looks up at him, that wrinkle still between his eyebrows. "It's still fate. It's gotta be."

Dylan grins despite himself. Yeah. Fate. 

* * *

Planning is better than ever after that. Eric has a newfound concentration, and Dylan feels like Christmas just got extended. Fucking giddy. They produce enough to shit to take down the school and then some. They plan for massive fucking propane bombs, for shit to go off after they get shot down, or after they shoot themselves. And no one notices fucking anything. It's fate. It has to be.

And when the day comes, and Dylan feels so fucking excited-- finally, holy shit-- he can hardly contain himself. He keeps tripping over his words, keeps going over the plan in his head. It's gonna be fucking perfect.

They get to the parking lot, park their cars in the right spot, rig everything up, and it's so close Dylan can fucking taste it. They meet up one last time before they're meant to go to their respective spots and stick there for the second act. Eric is more stoic, but Dylan can see the small shifts of anticipation in his face. He watches the way he taps his fingers on his leg. 

He double-checks inventory, makes sure Dylan has everything he needs, nods curtly. He reaches into the passenger's side and pulls out a pair of gloves, black, Dylan's seen them before. Eric hands one to him. The left one. Dylan slips it on silently, Eric does the same with the right. 

They clasp hands, pull in close, their opposite shoulders touching for half a second. They won't see each other again, probably. 

But everything ends up going to shit. The school's intact. And Dylan's freaking the fuck out. He can't move from his position, can't believe a plan Eric made wouldn't work. This is it for the both of them. Everyone will find out it was them, what they tried to do, and Dylan won't be able to get into college, and Eric will be shipped off somewhere by someone--

He feels a hand on his shoulder. "C'mon man, we gotta go in. This is our only fucking shot."

Dylan looks up at him, and with the sun behind his head, he looks like an angel. Dylan laughs. God. Of course this is how it would go. They'd have to make their own fate. 

Eric pulls him up off the grass. They share a look. 

If they were to go NBK, they'd have to do it properly. They'd have to be willing to go down in a hail of bullets. 

They set off for the entrance. 

**Author's Note:**

> love seeing kudos and all that-- esp from authors i've been reading lately. it's so funny when i look at the kudos and recognize names from works i've been reading during this resurgence of my columbine fixation. that is to say, uh, thanks for reading and stuff. i really appreciate it. 
> 
> just here to single-handedly populate this tag as fast as i can before my tiny gremlin brain moves onto something else lmao. glad im getting any hits at all. 
> 
> oh and the title's from Cry by ashnikko & grimes, a song neither of the boys would like probably. lol


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